Things Unsaid
by christikat
Summary: Written for smallfandomfest on LJ. Prompt: Matt's family finds out.  There's an unannounced visitor showing up, much to Matt's dismay.  This is a sequel to a story called "Worst or Best Idea?" but it's not necessary to read that one beforehand.


**Title:** Things Unsaid

**Author:** christikat

**Fandom:** Live Free or Die Hard

**Pairing/Characters:** John McClane / Matt Farrell

**Rating/Category:** NC-17 (to be on the safe side – no graphic sex)

**Word count:** ~ 4300

**Prompt:** Matt's family finds out.

**Notes/Warnings:** established relationship; This is a sequel to "Worst or Best Idea?" but it's unnecessary to read that beforehand.

**Beta:** Many thanks to flwrpwr_vampyre

**Summary: **There's an announced visitor showing up, much to Matt's dismay.

Things Unsaid

Matt was almost hyperventilating by the time he talked himself into a rant about John forgetting to buy his energy drinks on purpose. John merely raised an eyebrow at Matt's accusation.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I wrote it on the last shopping lists _every_ time. I wrote it on the list yesterday in bold letters and even highlighted it, that's why."

Matt flailed around with his arms in frustration. Hell, he even pouted. Of course the pouting-thing never worked on John. Well, except for the times when it did but that wasn't up for discussion now. "Really? I couldn't decipher what you wrote, what with all the smeared color from the highlighter."

"Yeah, right," Matt rolled his eyes. "Stop trying to parent me. I'm totally not into that Daddy-crap."

"What? You don't want to be my boy? You don't want me to take care of you? You don't-"

"Okay, okay! Stop, stop that!" Matt's eyes were slightly unfocused, the way they always got when he had been caught by telling a lie. He held up his hands in a pose of surrender. At least the pout had gone and gotten replaced by a cocky smile. "I fully expect you to live up to my _high_ expectations of you taking care of me later tonight."

He hurried to the door, very well knowing that if John would get a hold of him that he wasn't going to get any energy drinks any time soon. John had to give it to the kid – he could be fast if he wanted. Matt was out of the door before John had crossed half the way towards him. The door slammed shut when John hollered, "Cock tease!"

John went over to the window and waited until Matt came out of the building. The kid looked up at him with a big grin on his face and flipped him off.

"Oh, just you wait 'til you get back home," John muttered. The reflexion of the window showed him an almost feral grin.

The kid strode away and John went over to their bedroom. He plumped up their pillows and wanted to do the same with the blankets when his gaze got caught on the sheet. He wrinkled his nose at seeing the stains on it. He quickly threw the pillows and blankets on the floor, all the while grumbling about the things he was doing for the kid. He changed the sheet, then sniffed at the rest of the linen. Matt's scent lingered in it and John inhaled it deeply. When it dawned on him what he was doing John briskly ripped off the linen and put fresh ones on. He was still shaking his head and muttering when he was finished with his task.

All this effort just to get laid? That was ridiculous! He only had to lower his voice a tad, tell the kid to get on his lap and he'd score. John was smoothing down the edges of the blanket when a knock at the door drew his attention.

John went to the door, on his way shouting, "Hey, cock tease! You're not getting any when you-"

He cut himself off midway when the door was open and no Matt stood in front of him. He cleared his throat while forcing his face into an impassive expression. Given his embarrassment that was bordering on impossible. Since John was an expert in making the impossible possible he managed to keep his face straight. A woman of his age was standing in front of him and stared at him incredulously. She didn't say a word, her hand was still up in the air as if she was considering to knock again.

"May I help you?" John asked politely.

He took in the sight of the woman; she was dressed in a dark blue suit, obviously rather expensive. The shoes fit precisely to the suit as did the purse she was now clutching tightly. Her fingers were manicured and her hair looked as if she had just been to the hairdresser. Her whole demeanor spoke of an upper class lady and John wondered what the hell she was doing at his apartment door.

"I'm sorry, I think I took the wrong door. I wanted to visit my son, Matthew Farrell. Do you happen to know which apartment is his?"

John grabbed the door handle so hard his knuckles stood out white. Great, meet the mother-in-law, well kind of, and make the best first impression ever. Way to go, John!

John coughed and desperately tried to think of a good solution to this disaster when he heard familiar footsteps on the stairway. John excused himself from Matt's mother and scurried over to the stairways, intent on warning Matt. The kid however saw him and grinned broadly. John really hoped that he wouldn't run his mouth right now because that couldn't end well. Before John was able to get out a single word Matt was talking. "Hey, can't wait for me, huh? I might have to run off more often if it gets you to welcome me on the stairs already. What? No remark? No? Not even a slam Matt against the next wall to shut him the fuck up? How about kissing me until I beg you to have mercy on me?"

John groaned while Matt's mother gave a high-pitched shriek. Matt glanced around John and all color left his face. John had seen him embarrassed and also scared to death but never so utterly dismayed. Matt's voice had an almost hysterical edge to it when he stammered, "_M-Mom_! What … what are you doing here?"

"_Matthew_! I want to talk to you - _in private_."

John felt pity for Matt who cringed and ducked his head when his mother spoke to him. She had her voice back under control although there was barely contained fury in it. Matt's eyes darted from his mother to John to the front door of their apartment but he was frozen to the spot. John had always been a man of action and today was no exception to the rule. He gently laid a hand on the small of Matt's back and gave a light push into the right direction. Matt allowed John to guide him and nervously gestured, indicating for his mother to enter the apartment before him.

As soon as the door was closed Matt's mother stood in front of her son, gripped his chin in one hand and asked in a cutting voice, "Matthew, what was that about? Don't tell me that this man here is … what I think he is." She couldn't keep up the control over her voice, instead it turned shrill and piercingly, "How dare you talk like … like this _in public_? Haven't we raised you better?"

Matt looked like a deer caught in the headlights, all frozen with huge wide dark eyes. John had never seen Matt at a loss for words. Even though he sometimes wished the kid would have an off-button but the Matt who was standing there wasn't the one he had gotten to know. He didn't like the altered Matt version one single bit. He seemed so shy and forlorn, words John never thought he'd use in relation to Matt.

John went between mother and son with practiced ease which earned him a glare from Matt's mother. Matt's head snapped around and in that moment he reminded John really of a kid who was afraid of getting a scolding by his parents. The age difference between himself and Matt struck John with unexpected force. He pressed his lips together to a tight line and took the bag with energy drinks from Matt.

"There's no need to yell at each other in the hallway. You can go do that in the kitchen or in the living room."

John allowed himself a smug smile to tug at his mouth as he saw the stunned expression on the face of Matt's mother. It vanished quickly when he became aware that Matt wasn't smiling, not even the faintest hint of a smile was visible. Instead he hunched his shoulders and looked as if he wanted to cry. Before John even knew what he was doing he went over to Matt and pulled him in close. Matt's mother gave another high-pitched shriek which was _really_ getting annoying. Matt didn't yield against him like he usually did, on the contrary he became rigid and unresponsive. Awkwardly John patted him on the back and whispered into his ear, "You need help, you call out for me."

He locked eyes with Matt and finally got a response. The kid nodded almost imperceptibly and swallowed hard. John went over to the kitchen after staring coldly at Matt's mother for a few seconds. She visibly shrunk together under his glare, something John noticed with satisfaction. So far his glare was only unsuccessful when he used it at Matt, Lucy or Jack.

He listened attentively to Matt ushering his mother over to the sofa. She tried to keep her voice low but soon they were both getting louder. From the kitchen John watched Matt spring up from the sofa, starting to pace and gesticulate even more erratically than usual.

"Mom, for Christ's sake! It's none of your business who I'm dating!"

Matt's mother obviously didn't like having to look up at her son so she got up as well. Her face was red from anger, "I'm your _mother_! I didn't even know that you were seeing someone, let alone that you're living together … together with a man who is old enough to be your father!"

Son and mother were standing in front of each other, glaring at each other and not budging an inch. Matt crossed his arms in front of his chest and casually said, "I wouldn't be living with John if he was even remotely like my father."

A second later a loud slap echoed through the apartment, accompanied by a startled gasp. Matt touched his hurt cheek while he openly gaped at his mother out of watery eyes. John had already hurried over and briskly pushed his way in between the other two. Through gritted teeth he brought out, "Mrs. Farrell would you please leave _now_?"

"I'm not finished, I-"

John's voice was dangerously low and gravelly when he replied, "You _are_ finished. Don't make things worse."

"I'm going to call the police! You can't-"

This time it was Matt who cut her off with a groaned, "Mom! Care to get to know my _lover_? This is John McClane, he's a cop. You've probably heard about him. He saved the whole country and stuff all on his own, normally you'd kiss his feet."

John cringed a little bit at the use of the term lover but since it was clear that Matt said it to get a rise out of his mother he was okay with it. He was more than okay to see Matt straightening up but he didn't allow him step around him. Matt's mother was gawking at him, then pressed her lips together. In a clipped voice she addressed Matt, "I'm really disappointed and so will be your father."

"Tell me something new," Matt muttered.

"Matthew!"

"Mom, get out here. I agreed on calling you for Christmas and for your birthday. It's neither one of those occasions right now so there's no need for us to talk or for you to criticize."

Matt's mother sighed, then breathed in deeply as if she wanted to prepare herself to give a long and detailed explanation to a very dumb person. John frowned and shifted his weight so he was still standing between mother and son but could also have a good look at Matt. The kid had a stoic, even somewhat bored expression plastered on his face. It looked off, not real and after a glance towards Matt's twitching fingers John knew that Matt wasn't even remotely stoic.

"I hope you know whom you're talking to, Matthew. Neither your father nor I agreed on you leaving our family but we were willing to give you some space," she gave another deep sigh, then continued, "your brother is getting married in about two months and we want you to be there. I'll be more than happy to find a date for you."

She retrieved an envelope from her purse and laid it on the table. John was still blinking and trying to comprehend all of the ignorant blather from Matt's mother. Inwardly he was already calling her several different unfavorable names but he kept his mouth shut. He watched Matt staring at his mother with his eyes drawn to small slits and red spots of anger dancing on his cheeks.

"Do you want me to show you to the door?" Matt asked, his voice sounding raspy.

His mother bristled at the open dejection from her son and told him, "No, thanks. I'll find my way out. Your father still wants you to join the company. Maybe it would clear your head and set your perspective on life right. You know, so that you can see you belong to your family and should try to get your own family and-"

Matt's mother stopped herself when Matt turned around, trembling from the effort to hold himself together, and walked towards his office. The door slammed shut and a few seconds later music blasted out of this room. Sourly his mother commented, "This is juvenile. I really wish he'd grow up." She looked at John, then added, "You know of course that he'll lose interest in you? I mean, it's just a … a phase he's going through. He just has to get around and figure out-"

John's patience was depleted. He laid one of his hands on Mrs. Farrell's elbow which caused her to wrinkle her nose in disgust. He gave a slight push and growled, "Maybe it's you who has to do the figuring out. You're going to leave now and don't you dare show up here again until you can accept that your son is a grown man who can make his own decisions."

"Are you … are you threatening me? Oh my God, my poor boy! I'll make sure that he'll get back to his family!"

She gaped at him, speechless after that and turned on her heels and swiftly walked out. John followed her and smashed the door so hard that the sound reverberated from the walls. He was seething with anger and relieved himself with smacking his fist against the door several times. Afterwards he flexed his hand and wondered if he should leave Matt alone or keep him company. He was muttering and grumbling about Matt's mother while he pondered if he was acting the same way towards his own children. But that … that couldn't be, could it? Not like this anyway, he was just protecting them and uh, shit, he'd think about this later!

John barged into Matt's room without knocking, went over to the speakers and switched them off. It got him an irritated, "Hey, I was listening to that!"

Still Matt didn't look at him, his eyes were glued to the screen in front of him while those nimble fingers scurried over the keyboard. It occurred to John that he didn't know much about Matt and especially his past. On the other hand everything was still new, the almost fire-sale had been only three months ago. They hadn't talked about them becoming a couple, probably out of fear to jinx it. It had come naturally to them after the first night spent together to simply share John's bed each night. A week after the first blow-job John had cleared some drawers of his cupboard and Matt's clothes wandered into them without them talking about it. That was what John really, really liked about them – they didn't have to talk about stuff for hours, they just did it.

"Kid … Matt, come over here for a moment."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I want to talk with you!"

Matt stopped the tapping on his keyboard and rubbed his hands over his face. He kept his face hidden behind his palms and mumbled, "I don't want to talk about it. _We_ don't do talking and it's not that big of a deal." He shrugged, then added, "Just forget it, they have always been like that and they'll never change their attitude."

"We could start talking. I didn't even know that your parents are rich people."

Finally Matt lifted up his head and turned around to face John. "Why'd you think they are rich?"

"Because of your mother's clothes, her whole attitude and didn't she say something about a company?"

"My father inherited a lot of money from his father and took over a good flowing real estate business. My mother has always been at home, doing charity stuff and caring about her appearance. That's all you need to know," Matt replied.

His jaw was set tightly and tension radiated from his body in waves. He swiveled around in his chair and angled for his headset. Before he could put them on John snatched them away. Anger bubbled to the surface and caused Matt to lunge at John to get his headset back. Seconds later he was sitting on John's lap, legs tucked up under his chin with John's strong arms holding him in place. He was gulping in air in jerky gasps and still struggled weakly against John's hold.

"Kid, come on, stop struggling," John tried to soothe.

"We agreed that you stop calling me _kid_!" Matt yelled.

He gave another hard shove against John's arms but when this was of no avail all strength left his body and he slumped against John's chest. John felt Matt's chest heave up and down unevenly and pressed a kiss on his forehead. He began trailing light kisses from Matt's forehead to his nose until he was at his mouth. Matt allowed John's tongue entrance in an instant and his arms came up around John's neck. John helped him to adjust his position on his lap and kept on kissing him.

Tension slowly seeped out of Matt's body and after a while he rested his head on John's shoulder. He was wheezing and snuggled even closer to John even though that should have been impossible. "Don't ask me to talk about this again. Otherwise I'd have to ask you questions about your past and you wouldn't like that. Then you'd get cranky and I'd become pissed and soon we'd yell at each other or even worse would start to evade each other and frankly, that would be a waste of time. You don't like to waste time on unimportant stuff like this and neither do I and why aren't you telling me to shut the fuck up by now?"

John held Matt's face pressed against his shoulder since it wasn't essential for Matt to see the relieved smile on John's face. Yeah, sometimes he _really_ wished Matt had an off-button for all his babbling but for the time being he couldn't imagine to hear something better than Matt's chatter. It meant that this was the real Matt, the one he'd gotten to know and it also was the one he'd fallen in love. There, he'd said it, or well, he'd thought it and no thunder or lightning had occurred and threatened to take Matt away from him. Well, more likely the thunder would come in form of another terrorist or criminal but that wasn't the point right now.

"I'm okay with the no more talking bit," John said.

"So, do you want to live up to my high expectations now?"

John groaned, "For Christ's sake, k-, uh, _Matt_! Your bitch of a mother has just been here, insulted and slapped you and now you wanna have sex?"

"Sure, you got a problem with that?"

"I …," John started, then trailed off.

Actually, no, he didn't have a problem with that but it didn't seem to be the most mature thing to do and one of them had to act responsible, right? Or maybe Matt's insouciance could rub off on him and he could forget all about acting his age.

"You what?" Matt interrupted John's pondering.

John sighed deeply, "Having sex won't change that you feel shitty about what happened."

"I beg to differ. Getting laid by _you_ will make me forget about anything that happened the last 24 hours. If you do it right, of course, you know. You'd need to make me scream and go all caveman on me and-"

John gave a short growl and shoved Matt off his lap. "Come on then."

"What? No carrying me over? I'm disappointed!" Matt was grinning that specifically cheeky grin he had when he knew that he'd just played John successfully.

The older man frowned, then closed the distance between them in one step. He grabbed Matt and threw him over his shoulder, smirking when he heard an indignant squeak. "Keep your head down," he advised.

"That always makes me think of bullets flying around us," Matt complained. "And hey, with carrying me over I didn't mean it like _this_."

"No? You should have elaborated your phrase for the poor caveman guy to get it right," John scoffed as he laid Matt down on the bed.

The kid was sprawled out on his back, glancing at him questioningly. John kept up the stoic facade and watched a fine blush spreading out from Matt's cheeks to his neck. Usually John would have kept up the stoic face for a while just to see Matt squirming uncomfortably but today wasn't going to be one of those days. Instead he crawled on top of Matt, loomed above him and asked earnestly, "You're sure about that?"

Matt swallowed, then reached out to pull John's head down to kiss him passionately. It was enough of an answer for John. Even though he still mostly thought of Matt as 'the kid' he damn well knew that he was a grown-up man and therefore responsible for his own actions. He also wanted to erase the images of a shy and lost looking Matt. The image of a contently smiling Matt in post-coital bliss would suffice.

John wanted to go slow but Matt had other plans. He was busy licking a path around one of Matt's nipples but Matt was still wearing his shirt and obviously had enough of it. Using the element of surprise Matt rolled them over so he was straddling John and chucked off his shirt. John's shirt got the same treatment and only seconds later Matt was opening the button of his jeans. "Whoa, kid, slow down. No need to rush it, ya know?"

Matt positively growled and slapped John on his biceps with his open palm. Startled John looked at the younger man, pondering what he'd done but Matt was already helping him out in this regard with snapping, "_Stop. Calling. Me. Kid_! Geez, that can't be too difficult! Do I look like a kid? No! Why is it so difficult to get that in your head? Why can't you just … just ..."

All sexual tension depleted when Matt weakly thumped his fists on John's chest while he tried to get his voice back under control. John simply stopped Matt's movements with pulling the younger man down so he was resting atop of John. Matt's chest heaved up and down irregularly and he clutched at John's shoulders tightly. He rubbed his hands over Matt's back, attempting to soothe him. Neither of them said a word, not even when Matt couldn't hinder some tears to spill over and slowly rolling over John's chest.

For a while they just laid like this, chest to chest, being close and more intimate as they would have been with having sex. John reached for the box of tissues on his nightstand and handed Matt some to blow his nose and wipe his face. When Matt was done he stretched out on top of John to take of the strain of his knee and mumbled, "I'm sorry. I … I'll make it up to you later, okay? Just give me a second and I'm ready to roll and-"

"_Matt_! Shut up! That's the dumbest thing you've said in a quite a while and you say a lot of dumb stuff."

It had the desired effect of Matt looking up with a mix of irritation and incredulity on his face. John smirked as Matt groaned which was followed by an affectionate, "You're an ass."

John shrugged before he gently cupped Matt's face in his hands. They locked eyes but nothing was said. Eventually Matt smiled that lopsided smile that brought out his boyish features even more than usual. John smiled back and the message it transported was clear. Matt slid down from John's body and nestled up against his side, one leg draped above John's abdomen and one of his hands resting above John's heart. Softly he whispered, "Same here."

John tightened his hold on Matt in response. They didn't say it aloud but both knew what they felt for the other man. Some things didn't need to be said, they just were.

END


End file.
